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Author Topic: Fort Design & General Layout, Level by Level  (Read 45646 times)

Thundercraft

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Fort Design & General Layout, Level by Level
« on: May 29, 2011, 04:17:33 am »

Rather than my usual haphazard fort design of little planning - mostly digging rooms and placing stuff wherever needed and whatever strikes my fancy - I've decided to try planning out some forts prior to striking the earth. And I'd like to design for a certain level of efficiency. You know, stuff like placing the bedrooms away from noise (such as wood cutting, wall engraving, and digging), keeping the butcher's shop near the surface or near the animal pens/pastures, the food stockpiles next to the farms, the kitchen near the food stockpiles, the main storage level near the workshops, etc, etc. Mostly, I'd like to keep the walking distance down.

To that end, I'm finding it useful to plan the general functions of certain levels and attempt to place them in an efficient layout. Also, I've been reading forum threads on fort design, such as Dwarven Designs, the Bad Fort Design thread, and the [Quickfort] thread (among others), as well as studying various fort screenshots, reading up on the wiki (especially Design Strategies, Bedroom Design, & Workshop Design), etc. (Reading The DF2010 Little Questions Thread has been helpful, too.)

Here I want to share some general tips in fortress design that I've been collecting from various sources. And I invite others to do the same. What I'm mostly looking for are general tips based on usage that should apply to most forts, rather than discussing finer details or complex layouts for experts.

Yes, some of these tips are obvious. What I'm looking for is a thread of suggestions that can be glanced over to get a lot of design ideas and to make sure something obvious was not forgotten or overlooked. I've begun to organize these tips to keep similar themes together (such as surface, near surface, & deep underground), but I'm far from finished.

=== SURFACE ===
* Mine the surface: Soil is mined much more quickly than stone (x3-x4 faster). Take advantage of this to get initial rooms finished rapidly and to train the mining skill quickly.
* River fishing (optional): Consider building an enclosed area above a river with a grate above. This should allow fishing (and fresh water) while keeping your dwarves safe.
* Automatic fish catcher (optional): See this post and this post for some details.

* Carpenter's Workshop either on the surface or near the surface for easy access to wood. Optionally, isolate a part of the forest for trees. (Only important for first years of fort, before an underground forest can be used for wood.)
* Optional: Surface agriculture for above-ground crops. (Or, on a subterranian level close to the surface (soil or muddied rock) and opened up for light. It may be covered over later and still be considered light and above ground. See Above Ground Farming for details.) If above ground, add walls to protect from invaders. Also, consider adding a "roof" to protect from attack by fliers.
* Pasture and grazing animal pens: Build on the top level. (Grass might also grow in a subterranian level close to the surface (soil or muddied rock) and opened up for light.) If above ground, add walls to protect from invaders. Also, consider adding a "roof" to protect from attack by fliers.

=== UNDERGROUND ===

* Stockpile Level: Has many of the primary stockpiles, with secondary stockpiles located elsewhere.
  • NOTE: Do not have the Stockpiles for raw materials directly below the workshop area. Or, if one must, carefully choose which materials end up directly underneath which workshop. It can be frustrating when dwarves go below to grab materials to craft something, esp. since they can end up building stuff out of undesirable materials.
* Mist Generator(s) (optional): Used to give dwarves happy thoughts, which might help prevent tantrum spirals. Could be installed at Meeting Zones, in the Central Stairway, in the Dining Room, etc.
* Consider having an isolated, central "control room" in which all levers of significance are located. Lock up a dwarf inside with bed, table, chair, plenty of booze and food and prevent dwarf from ever leaving or socializing with other dwarves. His/her only purpose in life will be to pull levers when needed. This means levers will get pulled instantly. And the isolation will prevent tantrum insanity to ensure you will have a lever puller for many years. However, some means of dealing with the lever-puller dwarf coming down with a mood must be considered. Since the highest moodable skill will be selected, make sure said dworf(s) have one moodable skill higher than the rest and build a workshop for that skill and stock materials for it.
  • Extra bonus: The lever-puller dwarf could be married. The spouse could handle a small farm plot to grow food and brew alcohol, making the couple self-sufficient. But it might be wise to have a stocked workshop for his/her moods as well (or have him/her train to make his/her highest moodable skill the same as the lever-puller).
* Graveyard [Preferably, out of the way. Should have less path priority than other things.]
* Hospital, with lots of beds, water, soap, (food?) [Also, build a well here.]
* Well(s) with a large stone block cistern/reservoir. Said reservoir is filled with a pump that is triggered by water level (pressure plates) or refilled manually by levers. Source is protected by creature filters. Size should be large enough to supply through winter in freezing biomes. (Wiki says 20x25x1 is enough to last for many years even without booze.)
  • NOTE: Fortifications & grates can be used to filter contaminants from water. (See this post for mention.)
  • NOTE: Even in a biome without salt water, build a cistern to prevent "murky" water. (See this post for details.)
  • NOTE: Build a "river filter" to block creatures. (See this post for the details.)
  • NOTE: Build the well in a tiny (perhaps 1x2 ?) cubbyhole and install a "Dwarven Atomsmasher" to destroy the contaminants which will appear when dwarves wash. Lock the door before smashing so a dwarf won't get squished.
* Dwarven Bathtub (See Dwarven Bathtub, Cleaning Your Dwarfs, and soap.) Have one of these across each fortress entrance, each cavern entrance, the hospital entrance, the butcher's shop, and the refuse pile for corpses. Also, I found this post interesting. In particular:
Quote
...designate the inside of the pool (the bottom level) as an inactive meeting area, and dwarves should flock to clean it after it gets messy.
Alternatively, one could build a "Dwarven Atomsmasher" to destroy the contaminants on the bottom of the pool. Just be sure there are no dwarves in the bath when triggered...
* Obsidian Factory
* GCS Silk Farm * Treasure Room (optional): Make a "treasure room", an everything stockpile, deep in the fortress, restricted to artifacts & legendary quality items. Have pets and traps to guard it. Extra bonus: Entrance to Treasure Room could normally be flooded with magma or water. It could be filled by gravity or pump, but should have a drain hatch attached to a lever for manual drainage.
* Magma forges: Build on or near the bottom level, so they are as close to a source of magma as possible.

=== DEFENSES ===

* Defend outer walls with Fortifications and a narrow path for marksdwarves to path around and shoot. If there is an inner courtyard, design fortifications so marksdwarves can target enemies both outside the walls and within. Also, if the fortifications are at ground level, then dig channels around fortress walls to make it difficult for goblins to return fire through said fortifications.
* Optional: Instead of channels above, make it a river or moat of water or magma. Many creatures will avoid water and/or magma and will try to path around it.
* Have barracks above ground, either located in the center or along one of the walls. Barracks will contain bunks and bedrooms, furniture, dining tables, chairs, booze, food, swimming pool, training room with archery targets and danger room traps (wood), quality weapons and armor, and most anything a dwarf could want.
* Craftsdwarfs located on level below barracks in order to supply them immediately with bolts. This is not only practical, but it is a workaround for the bolt-equipping bugs.
Make sure said craftsdwarfs have access to plenty of bone, wood, metal, etc.
But do have a means to block the path to the barracks in an emergency.
  • NOTE: Do not have the Stockpiles for raw materials directly below the workshop area. Or, if one must, carefully choose which materials end up directly underneath which workshop. It can be frustrating when dwarves go below to grab materials to craft something, esp. since they can end up building stuff out of undesirable materials.
* Use lots of serrated disk traps. If more than one type of trap is used, place them as the first trap layer, before others (with the exception of cage traps). Disks are deadly and tend to sever limbs, which means more bones, more skin for leather, etc.
* DODGING CHASM: Have narrow walkways and a 5 z-level chasm with vertical spears and/or water at the bottom. Then station dogs near the entrance and/or use spear traps to get enemies to dodge.
* Lockable Doors: Install lots of these to isolate moody dwarves or sections of the fortress in an emergency. Keep in mind that building destroyers (types 1 & 2) will break them and some creatures can open locked doors.
* Floodgates (optional, may use doors instead): Install these to isolate sections of the fortress in an emergency. Keep in mind that building destroyers (type 2) can destroy them.
* Pumps to flood with water/magma (optional): Combined with floodgates above, build water and/or magma pumps to flood certain areas of the fortress in an emergency. Keep in mind that some nasty creatures are immune to drowning and/or death by magma.
* Bridges & Channels (optional): Install drawbridges and channels/gaps to isolate sections of the fortress in an emergency. Keep in mind that building destroyers (type 2) might destroy them if they are lowered. (Rare. Much more likely to just walk across.) And they will not destroy them if raised.
* Install traps at strategic locations to slow or halt intruders. Design these traps so they can be activated or disabled by pulling levers.
* Locked Hatch or lowered Bridge over Ramp entrance: (See this post for details.) Build either configuration in certain places to safely isolate sections from building destroyers. Alternatively, instead of locking the hatch, use a lever to activate.
« Last Edit: May 29, 2011, 08:39:49 pm by Thundercraft »
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Thundercraft

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Re: Fort Design & General Layout, Level by Level
« Reply #1 on: May 29, 2011, 04:19:52 am »

As for level design, I've got a few things figured out. However, I do not have experience in such planning and fort design, so it's difficult for me. I don't have much to show yet.

But what I had done a few months ago was re-watch Captnduck's DF Tutorials, episode 40, which was the 3D tour of his old fort, and wrote out some details of his layout. It's for an old version of DF and it's far from ideal, but it gave me a starting point. The following is his fort layout as best as I could ascertain:

Captnduck's Tutorials: DF tutorial 40 - 3D tour
Fort Layout for "Breakfastgears"


Classic above ground fort with walls, moat, two drawbridges, center area for trade depot and storage stockpiles, one or more barracks in the corner(s), chimney to release miasma(?), and a tall tower to execute prisoners.

NOTE: On each underground level he has 4 stairs in each corner, for a total of 16 stairs.

z-1: Large agriculture level with tower caps, etc.
z-2: Large crafting (workshop level)
z-3: Storage level. Also, recreation area with statues and wells. Also, to the side, is
     the graveyard.
z-4: Another storage and/or crafting level. Also cistern to provide water for the wells.
z-5: Forging level.
z-6: Magma paths/pipes to supply the magma forges.
z-7: Shopping level.
z-8: Top of the arena(s).
z-9: Bottom of the arena(s).
z-10: Top sleeping level. [In the center are lots of 1x3 quarters, surrounded by lots of
      3x3 quarters, and on the edge appears to be some 3x4 quarters.]
z-11: The royal King's and Queen's chambers.
z-12: The Queen's consort's chambers. [He called them the "Vassals' room" at first.]
z-13: The Nobles' rooms. Numerous large rooms with walls that appear to be 9x7, which
      would make the rooms 7x5. But it's hard to make out and they could be 7x7 instead.
      Also, he made extra room around stairs by cutting out the corners of room walls.
z-14: Lowest sleeping level. Lots and lots of 3x3 rooms, with numerous 1x3 along edges.

Far off to one side:
============
z-2: Origin of underground river.
z-3: Main course of underground river.
z-4: Bottom of underground river.
z-5: Dragon's dungeon. (Also, a few storage rooms?)
z-6: Some rooms (assumed to be for storage). Absolute bottom of underground river.
        [Falls off into bottomless pit in a waterfall.]
z-7: Lots of access roads for the underground forest below.
z-8: Vast, rectangular underground forest of tower caps and spider webs.

Personally, I'd separate the peasant sleeping level by two levels from the noble sleeping quarters. Certainly not for some elitist reason, but because the nobility benefits so much from wall engraving and that generates noise (4 tiles in every direction) that could keep the peasants above or below from getting sleep.

I hope some of this and the previous post will benefit others and I would greatly appreciate any fortress level layouts other players are willing to share. Layouts designed for efficiency are preferred, but any level layout is welcome.
« Last Edit: May 30, 2011, 12:46:42 am by Thundercraft »
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Matazat

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Re: Fort Design & General Layout, Level by Level
« Reply #2 on: May 29, 2011, 07:07:19 pm »

This post reminded me that I really need to think about my fort layouts. I usually just dig down and the next level will contain whatever I need most. I end up with weird, inefficient layouts like:

 0 Surface farms
-1 Underground farms
-2 Meeting area/dining hall
-3 Food production
-4 Barracks
-5 Mass Storage/Workshops
-6 Bedrooms
-7 Graveyard

I also tend to avoid building anything more than a small tower above ground, and that's just to protect the entry ramp. Fun™ happens when I breach the caverns and nasties swarm up from the bottom (which has happened at least 5 times now).
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Montague

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Re: Fort Design & General Layout, Level by Level
« Reply #3 on: May 29, 2011, 08:58:41 pm »

I like to put any workshop that can be claimed by a moody dwarf its own room with a door.

This way I can lock the door and forbid all the lower-value items he requires, then unlock it. I also carve fortifications in the room for ventilation. By ventilation I mean having a squad of marksdwarves ventilate any moody dwarf inside that goes crazy due to a lack of a material.

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evileeyore

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Re: Fort Design & General Layout, Level by Level
« Reply #4 on: May 30, 2011, 03:58:14 am »

Mine tend to "look" like this:

+1, +2 Barracks, training areas, "Military" Dining Hall, New arrivals Dorm, Trade Depot, etc
0 "Outside" farms, Butcher, tanner, Fishery, Pastures
-1 Farm stockpiles, Wood Stock pile, uncooked food stocks, Subterran Farms, Pastures
-2 Farm Workshops, Still, Kitchen, Carpentry, Bowery, Mill, associated stocks
-3 "Outdoors Dwarf's" housing (Woodcutters, Farmers, etc)
-4 Water Cistern
-5 Plumbing for Waterfalls
-6 Housing, Dinig Hall, Meeting Areas, Cell blocks, Waterfalls, etc
-7 Waterfall reclamation level
-8 Trade Stockpiles
-9 Craftsdwarfs, Jewelers, Masons, Weavers, etc
-10 Metal Industry
-11 Magma Cistern
-12, -13 Military Complex
-14, and more "Defensive works" and mines, etc





However... my latest Fort has a dreaded "deep soil" aquifer (it's atleast 2 levels deep and soil) and caverns starting probably somewhere around -7 or so... so... it's going to be "different".  I've never really dealt with aquifers before, I've always deliberately avoided them or managed to get "stone aquifers".
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Erkki

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Re: Fort Design & General Layout, Level by Level
« Reply #5 on: May 30, 2011, 06:17:28 am »

surface: barracks under sky to avoid cave adaptation, trade depot

-1, -2: farms, workshops, most stockpiles

-3, -4: underground tree farms

-5, -6, -7: living areas, dining halls, food stockpiles, hospital

-8: food stockpiles, prison

-11, -12: catacombs and tombs(upper for civilians, lower for soldiers)

-39: forges and smelters

map upload: http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-10472-actionpaints

Any comments?  :)
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Dorf3000

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Re: Fort Design & General Layout, Level by Level
« Reply #6 on: May 30, 2011, 09:59:14 am »

I try not to designate levels for one purpose only, but rather use the hotkey functions to zip between different areas.  That way you can always have F1 pointing to your depot or entrance or similar, and if you happen to decide to move it later then it's simple to reassign the key.  If you don't cheat and have super-speed dwarves, you'll need to have a temporary area to defend and survive while you do the digging of your properly designed fort.  Depending on the scale you might even need more than one temporary area (damn migrants arrive so fast, there are 50 hungry dwarves and a mayor demanding special rooms before you even set up the main fort's entrance defences)

Also if you want to be efficient and reduce walking distances, then you should either pump up magma near the surface, or leave the surface for the humans and elves and make your fort deep underground.  There's no penalty for making the traders walk 500 steps down to your trading depot.  Grazers will live happily on cave moss and fungus, you can avoid the problems of cave adaptation if your dwarves never have to go topside, trees grow in more abundance underground (and have more interesting colors ;) ), enemies come to you and drop their loot in an easily defendable area, etc. etc.
You lose some control over the surface but after a while you find that you never actually scroll all the way up there to look at it, and in fact those nasty green colors and the shining blue river makes your eyes hurt and your stomach turn to knots..
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StopGamer

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Re: Fort Design & General Layout, Level by Level
« Reply #7 on: January 31, 2015, 10:06:06 am »

 I was trying to minimise walking distance and build Compact fort year ago.
My scetches(cant decode them) https://www.evernote.com/shard/s319/nl/43378947/4becba45-20a6-4225-aa52-9f8600ed4168

Main idea was that z-level movement cost same as x/y-movement. So your fortress should be like a cube. I got near 20 lvls of fortress for that but needed more for cube, but that will be hard to manage? so I stopped
Second idea was that system of production-stockpile should be as compact as it can be, because the most of moving are during production.

So my design was rather ugly and crumped.
0+- trade depot, baracks, trade stock, defences, hospital
-1-above ground plants
-2-seed stockpile, Underground plants + Mill for seeds
-3-more underground plants
-4-Stockpile for plant thread and food, flour
-5,-6 - Pasture
-7 - farm workshops, buthery, refuse, area, tanning, leather working
-8,-9 - Pasture
Also got kitchen "tower" parallel to this with indigriends, food, boose, kitchen and dinning room, turkey and pig hens for 9 lvls or so
After this 8-9 lvls of optimised bedrooms + noble rooms
After this(or in my case parrallel to have emergency water from kitchen reservuar to flood magma in case of mistake) Forge:
-10 -Magma Forges
-11 - Stockpile of bars and things for melt
-12 - Magma Furnace
-13 - Stockpile of flux and ores
-14,15,16,17 - stockpile for Ores

Hardest part to create compact magma pools. I used coal at first before I can bring magma.

Also different workshops not listed here is placed aroud central stairway with assosiated stockpiles - the most unpleasant but effective thing.

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Skullsploder

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Re: Fort Design & General Layout, Level by Level
« Reply #8 on: January 31, 2015, 12:29:14 pm »

Just thought I might mention it, since a lot of your tips talk about using bridges to atomsmash contaminants: this doesn't work. I am, right now, looking at my trash compactor. Its bridge comes down every time a dwarf dumps an item, so there is no item on the tile to be smashed, and yet the tile is covered in contaminants - dwarf, elf, goblin, and ettin blood, along with dog and ettin vomit. So yeah bridges are useless for cleaning purposes, you'll have to rely on the dwarves themselves cleaning up the bloodstains.
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Falconbridge

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Re: Fort Design & General Layout, Level by Level
« Reply #9 on: January 31, 2015, 12:30:00 pm »

well i have a crappy computer so updown stairs in hallways instaid of a classic central staircase has really helped me ( better pathing I think, but mostly because stuff gets done so fast even on very low FPS).
each floor is based on same basis: 3x3workshops with Updown stairs in between each. (So it's 11x11 tiles for easy designation)
+3  barracks with no roof on top so they don't cave adapt (they do get pissed at the rain but usually stay happy overall).
+2  indoor refuse (for during sieges) and butcher, tanner, and fishery.
+1 Fortification and ammo stockpile.
0    Aboveground farm 9 3x3 plot.
-1   a stockpile under each farmplot to store the plants (easely see which plants i lack or have excess of)
-2  Undergound farms (switch -1 and -2 if i have only one layer of soil ). and seeds stockpiles
-3  stockpile for underground farms
-4 raw food stockpile (couldn't find a way to quantum stockpile foods)
-5  food preparation level: kitchen, still with appropriate feeder stockpiles. of to the side I dig small 2x1 tunel with a door and nest box to keep egg layers. also a cage to quantum stuff all baby animals in.
-6 legendary dinning hall: center 3x3 platform is for installing artefacts, around that is the booze and prepared meal stockpile. then I dig 3 tiles in each direction and add a chair, a table and a statue. (Total of 36 of each, more than enought for me who plays with the cap at 100 dwarves).
-7 bits and pieces stockpile.
-8 Hospital and Well.
-9 Wood level: wood burner, carpenter, bower and wood stockpile.
-10 Cloth level: clothier, loom, dier, leatherworks and stockpiles.
-11 furnace, forge, kiln and glass furnace, all magma powered arranged in a ring around the 11x11 tile base square ( cause it needs to have the room below to hold the lava). + the ores, bars , clay and sandbag stockpiles.
because the platform in the middle aren't fully used, i also usually add a Soap array in them ( wood burner, ashery, soapmaker ).
-12 Stone level: craftdwarf's workshop, macon, mecanics and stone stockpile.
this area is surrounded by the lava powering the furnace on top.
-13 gem level: jeweller, gem stockpile and a custom stockpile set to accept everything (but refuse and raw materials) , to
take only from links (but wIth no links to it so it's most of tje time empty) and set to give to the jeweler. there is a dump zone on top of the custom stockpile so i can simply dump anything i want engraved and it'll go and stay in the feeder stockpile to the jeweler.
-14 bedrooms , 9 beds per levels, for 8 levels .
the noble rooms go to the side. I place the required chest and cabinets in the tomb then lock the door so the little fuckers cann't stuff it with their crap.
-22 tomb level , pretty self explanatory.
-23 Jail level: 9 chains with bed, chair, table and food/drink stockpile.

most of the often used part of the fortress is roughly cube shaped.

this design is very modular (In the first few month there is a dormitory in the farm's stockpile and many aboveground workshop) and efficient (I actually have to make stone blocks to build the above ground part or I run out of stone without ever making a single rock craft) .
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